The Conflict

The conflict in the Artemis Fowl is when Artemis kidnaps Captain Short to try to steal a gold from the People. Being a criminal mastermind at the age of twelve and the discovery of the existence of fairies living underground, he devised a plan in order to capture a fairy. The main conflict of the story is that Artemis is trying to defeat the fairies in their own game. On the other hand, the fairies want to get back Captain Short and erased every memory that he has about fairies. Mud People supposedly should not know anything about the People.

The kidnapping was first presented in the fourth chapter of the book although there are some speculations that you can get in the first and second chapter of the book where Artemis learned everything about the fairies. He was able to get kidnap one fairy and in return, he wants gold. He was able to get the gold but returned half of it.

Sources:
http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/monkeynote/pmArtemisFowlSample.pdf